Socrates Lazaridis is CEO of the Athens Exchange Group. He is also Chairman of the Board of the Stock Markets Steering Committee, member of the Board of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, Chairman of the Hellenic Corporate Governance Council and Member of the Board of the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce. He joined the Athens Exchange Group in 1994 and held several positions at the Central Securities Depository, the "Systems Development and Support of Capital Market" (ASYK SA) and the Athens Exchange, while he served as member of the Board at Athens Derivatives Exchange and the Athens Derivatives Exchange Clearing House. He was also member of the Board of the LinkUp Markets and of the Federation of the European Securities Exchanges (FESE). Born in Athens in 1962, he studied Economics at the Department of Economics in National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and continued his studies for an MSc (Econ) at Queen Mary College of London. In 1987 he founded "Effect Ltd", which specialized in software development for the capital markets industry.